


outside of nowhere

by basset_voyager



Series: BLACK WIDOW STORIES [2]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Study, Female-Centric, Multi, Natasha + Trauma, Natasha Romanov-centric, Non-Linear Narrative, throw out all your brooding male heroes and replace them with natasha romanoff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 11:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3568568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basset_voyager/pseuds/basset_voyager
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Great, so now I’m being judged on my coping mechanisms by the amnesiac cyborg assassin,” she says. </p><p>[in which Natasha goes to Kiev, talks to Bucky, hangs with some college kids, and makes out with Sharon - not necessarily in that order.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	outside of nowhere

**Author's Note:**

> contains references to trauma and violence as well as allusions to real-life violent events in Ukraine

One of the first things that Natasha does after the SHIELD collapse is head to the Ukraine. She hitchhikes out of Kiev in a semi truck driven by a man with a red face who thankfully doesn’t make any attempt to flirt with her. He plays out-of-date American pop music and stares ahead at the road while she drifts in and out of sleep in the passenger seat, her backpack in her lap. 

“You travel light,” he says, an hour or so into the ride. 

“I always have,” she replies. 

He drops her in a village with a single stoplight and a crumbling church, and from there she walks up into the hills, relying on memory and vague instinct to tell her where she needs to go. For some reason, when Natasha remembers this part of the world, she always remembers it in the winter, with a slate-gray sky and trees half-buried in snow. It’s strange to see it in May. There’s mud underneath her shoes, and birds chirp in the trees. A thousand colors where she remembers only white. 

It doesn’t stop her from finding what she’s looking for. The complex looms behind a fence topped with barbed wire and a sign proclaiming in block Cyrillic type: CONDEMNED: DO NOT ENTER. Natasha takes a deep breath and pulls her wire cutters out of her bag. It takes her a few minutes to make a hole large enough for her to slip her body through. There are no cameras, no guards or dogs or floodlights. This place has been forgotten, a worthless relic of the past. Vines crawl up the windowless walls and brambles spill into the yard, their tendrils wrapping around the fence. Natasha has the strange thought that the forest itself is trying to destroy these buildings, to choke them and bury them until it’s as if they never existed. She’s not sure if that’s a good thought or not. 

( _The signal came from this location_ , Natasha says. 

Steve inhales. _So did I._ ) 

This place is not the Red Room. 

The Red Room is not a place. 

This is as close as she’s going to get, though. 

Natasha exhales and heads toward the main building, stopping every once in a while to untangle her ankles from the overgrown grass. The door is easy to force open. Inside, light pours through holes in the ceiling and dead leaves rustle under her feet as she steps. There’s not much left on the top level: an overturned desk here, a half-charred chair there. She wonders if this is one of the places she burned, or if someone else did it, or if they - had it been Hydra then? - did it themselves to clear away all evidence of what happened here. Those first few months after the Red Room are still hazy for her, even after all these years. 

Images come into Natasha’s mind like ghosts: girls lined up in their training uniforms, men with guns whispering to each other in corners, endless pages of information to memorize on how to properly pass for an English girl, a West German girl, an American girl. Her blood on this floor, these walls. The soldier, his eyes fixed on a scuff on the floor as his handler read out his orders. 

The soldier - _James Barnes_ , Natasha reminds herself. _Bucky_. It turns out he really did have someone waiting for him to come home. 

It’s a small world, after all. 

Natasha reaches the door to the elevator and stops. It’s an old-fashioned gate, rusted over now and coated with a layer of dust. The elevator itself must be at the bottom of the shaft - all Natasha can see is a concrete hole going down, down, down. She looks for the keypad to unlock the gate, but it’s been bashed in, and when she tries the gate, it comes open with a creak. She pulls her flashlight out of her pocket and shines it into the tunnel, but the light doesn’t reach far enough for her to see the bottom. She’s not sure how long she stands there, staring at the way the beam disappears into the darkness, before she realizes that her hand is shaking. 

_Take a breath, Nat,_ she thinks. Her hand steadies. Still, she reaches behind her to make sure her gun is still tucked into her belt. 

“This is gonna be fun,” she says aloud. She opens her backpack and pulls out her retractable cable, which she attaches to the top of the elevator shaft and to the harness she’s wearing under her clothes. After a quick check to make sure the cable will support her weight, she puts the flashlight between her teeth and lets her feet slip off the edge of the floor. She lets herself dangle for a few seconds, then closes her eyes and starts to lower herself down the shaft.

( _Natalia Romanova, subject ID XBW-28,_ the man in the white coat says, handing his clipboard to someone else she can’t see. _Responding poorly to reeducation._

She thinks she’s trying to scream but no sound is coming out.)

Natasha tries to concentrate on the hum of the cable unraveling from its pulley. 

(Is that real?) 

She stops the cable two floors down and digs her fingernails into her palm. The elevator gate to this level is in front of her, within arm’s reach. By the light of the flashlight, Natasha can only see glimpses of walls on the other side. 

_Care to see what’s behind Door #3, Miss Romanoff?_ Natasha thinks, and in the silence of the elevator shaft her laughter sounds much louder than it is. She reaches out and closes her fingers around the gate. 

. 

Natasha goes to see Sharon before she leaves for Ukraine. She doesn’t bother to check if Sharon survived the fight; she just shows up at the apartment in Dupont and lets herself in. In the kitchen, Sharon is packing things into cardboard boxes: photo albums, nurse’s scrubs, the remnants of a fake life. There’s a bandage on one of her arms and a nasty bruise on her jaw, but she grins when Natasha leans up against the doorway. 

“Here to help me move?” Sharon asks. Natasha huffs out a laugh. 

“Didn’t think so,” Sharon says. “Heard you had an exciting week.” 

Natasha shrugs. “It was pretty run of the mill.” 

“Oh yeah?” 

Sharon fits the lid onto the box in front of her. She stands for a second, hands resting against the cardboard, as if she’s unsure of what to do next. Her jaw is set in that way that makes Natasha think of Steve - or, rather, when Steve does it, Natasha always thinks of Sharon. It’s that Great American Hero, this-is-all-on-my-shoulders jaw. 

“Come on, Sharon,” Natasha says. “You couldn’t have known.” 

“I dedicated my life to that place,” Sharon replies. 

“We all did." 

“My aunt - “

“I know.” 

Natasha’s not sure what she’s supposed to do, if she’s supposed to reach out and touch Sharon or give her space. She’s not good at this. That’s something the leaked documents didn’t cover - Natasha Romanoff: bad with emotional honesty. Ha. At least that’s still hers. 

“What’re you going to do now?” she asks, and Sharon shakes her head. 

“I don’t know,” she admits. “I mean, I guess I’m still a government employee, technically. I could be reassigned to another agency.” 

“That what you want?” 

Sharon sighs. “I think so. Yes. I want to keep fighting. What about you?” 

Natasha walks further into the room and leans against the back of one of the chairs. She wonders what Sharon did all those nights here as she waited for disaster to strike the man across the hall. That’s what this job is, mostly: waiting and watching. Making yourself a piece of the backdrop until you’re needed. 

“I’ve got some things to figure out,” she tells Sharon, who rolls her eyes. 

“Any chance you’ll tell me what those things are?” 

“Nope." 

Sharon reaches out and puts her hand over Natasha’s where it rests on the back of the chair. 

“Nat, what you did was brave,” she says. “Whatever shit they drag out about you now...you’re a hero. Okay?” 

Natasha starts to say something, but then Sharon leans forward and presses their lips together. The chair ends up squished painfully between them as Sharon brings up her other hand to cup the back of Natasha’s head, and Natasha’s surprised by how easily it comes back, this way of moving with Sharon. She can feel Sharon’s hair against her cheek and Sharon’s calloused hands against the back of her neck. It’s only a few seconds, though, before Sharon pulls away, reaching up to straighten her collar. 

“Sorry,” she murmurs. 

“I don’t think you want to go down this road with me again,” Natasha says. Sharon laughs gently. 

“The whole world’s changed,” she says. “Maybe my old resolutions are moot.” 

Natasha can’t help but smile. Part of her hopes that Steve will call Sharon and the two of them will go jump out of planes together or whatever the hell it is Steve Rogers considers a date. Sharon deserves somebody like Steve. Another part of her - well, she doesn’t know. Like she said, they’ve been down this road. 

“I have to - ” Natasha starts to say. 

“Figure some things out, I know,” Sharon finishes for her. 

Natasha turns to leave - she’s never been great with goodbyes, either - but she stops and turns back around before she gets to the door. 

“Hey, Sharon?” she finds herself asking. “Did you ever think I could be Hydra?” 

Sharon looks at Natasha for a moment that probably feels longer than it is. She still has Natasha’s lipstick smudged on the side of her mouth.

“I thought you could be anything,” she finally says. 

Natasha smiles tightly. “I guess that was always the problem, wasn’t it?” 

“Yeah. I guess it was.” 

She leaves without kissing Sharon again. 

. 

Natasha needs to use both hands to move the gate, but she gets it open and pulls herself onto solid ground. She unhooks herself from the cable and shines the flashlight forward. It’s a long hallway, with a white tiled floor and doors that appear one by one in the beam of light. 

“Okay,” Natasha says. 

She opens the first door. 

Natasha can only see small bits of the room at one time - a gurney appears in the circle of light, then an overturned table with medical instruments strewn onto the floor around it. A scalpel. A syringe. There’s a thick, musty smell in the air, like rotting paper or cloth. She can see a dark stain on the floor underneath the gurney, likely blood. Doesn’t do her any good to wonder whose it is. It kind of looks like Texas if she turns her head to the side.

It’s just a room. The gurney is just a gurney. The blood is decades old. The shadows are chairs and cabinets and tables. She’s not sure what she expected - to find a file waiting here for her with her own eighteen-year-old face staring out from the page? Or maybe that someone would be here - Karpov, still standing in the corner with a cigar between his fat fingers and a .45 on his hip. He’d look her up and down and say in Russian: _See? The Widow always comes home._ She would take out her gun and shoot him in the face, and it would be over. Finally, it would be over. 

But the room is empty, and Vasily Karpov died in his bed in 1988. 

Natasha kicks over the gurney, and the noise it makes is like a gunshot in the silence of the room. It makes her ears ring. 

. 

Natasha reads over the Winter Soldier file at least ten times before she can bring herself to give it to Steve. She finds herself staring at the photograph tucked into the first page: a clean-shaven boy in an American uniform, his eyes lit up with barely-contained laughter. 

“James,” she murmurs aloud to herself. 

( _Natasha,_ she says, staring at her own face in the mirror. _Natasha Natasha Natasha Natasha Natasha._ ) 

Some of the file is in Russian, some in German, some in English. She coasts her fingers over medical records detailing the soldier’s vitals coming out of cryo, the state of his arm, his response to pain. She reads mission report after mission report. 

_Confirmed: 06/03/54 08:05_  
_Confirmed: 15/10/59 21:42_  
_Confirmed: 04/11/65 15:23_

She can’t help but wonder which of these missions were also hers, for which of these deaths she cleared the path or pulled the trigger herself. They were more efficient together. Cleaner. The file contains no mention of her, though, at least none that she can recognize. It does say that he went AWOL on U.S. soil sometime in the mid-60s, which would explain why the two of them were never sent on American missions together. He ended up in Brooklyn, according to a note in the margin of the page. 

( _Do you remember who you were before you came here?_ she asks. 

_Yes, I think so,_ he says. _Sometimes. But - it’s bad. It hurts._ ) 

Natasha closes the file and leans back in her chair. She puts her feet up on the table and grins at the thought of what Steve would say to that if he were here. Whatever. Her apartment, her rules, right? Not that she spends enough time here to really call this place hers. The cupboards are bare, the fridge is empty. There are no photographs lining the shelves like at Steve’s or Clint’s place. She’s not sure she’d have photographs to put up, even if she wanted to. 

“Pretty fucking pathetic, right?” she says, flipping open the file again and addressing the boy in the picture. He looks outward, his mouth opened slightly in a ghost of the smile she always imagined his face might be capable of. 

( _You might not want to pull on that thread._ )

She tucks the file under her arm and goes to meet Steve at the cemetery.

. 

Natasha wanders around Kiev for a few days afterwards. She lies her way into a hostel and ends up in a room with four English university students on a backpacking trip. When she says her name is Amy and that she’s an American planning to meet up with some old friends from a school exchange, they believe her. They have no reason not to. One of them, a girl with hair that escapes from its ponytail in a frizzy orange halo, insists on talking to her. 

“So, Amy, how long are you on holiday for?” she asks. 

“Ah, Maddie, don’t bother her,” says one of her friends. “She’s probably been travelling all day.” 

“It’s okay,” Natasha replies, putting on her friendliest smile. “Only about a week. I have to get back to work.” 

“Oh? What do you do?” asks Maddie. 

“I’m a dental hygienist.” 

The boy who told Maddie not to bother Natasha makes a face at one of his friends. Natasha laughs. 

“It’s not as boring as it sounds, I promise,” she explains. 

She said she needed to figure out some new covers; she might as well start now. The students invite her to play a drinking game - “We got vodka,” one says. “It’s thematic!” - and she agrees. It feels good, to slip back into a persona she can put between herself and the world. They sit on the threadbare carpet and one of the boys pours cheap vodka into paper cups. 

“I’m Mark,” he says. “This is Maddie and Neil and Tatiana.” He gestures to the redheaded girl and then to the others, a pale boy with glasses and a girl with dreadlocks piled on top of her head and a sweatshirt that identifies her school as the University of Manchester. 

“Have you ever played ‘Never Have I Ever’?” Neil asks. 

“Never have I ever played ‘Never Have I Ever,’” Natasha replies, and everyone laughs. 

“It’s simple,” Maddie explains. “Somebody says something they’ve never done, and if you have done it, then you have to drink.” 

“Well, alright,” Natasha says, making a show of wrinkling her nose at her drink. 

“I’ll go first,” says Tatiana. “Never have I ever...done cocaine.” 

Wow. Something Natasha actually hasn’t done either. Not a bad start. 

It goes on like that: Neil has never skydived, Mark has never been arrested, and Maddie has never hooked up with a girl. Natasha drinks at Mark’s turn and subsequently has to tell a story about getting arrested at an environmental protest her freshman year of college. 

“So this is why they warn you not to talk to people at hostels,” Mark says. “We’ve met a dangerous criminal.” 

“What can I say? I live on the wild side,” Natasha replies. She gives him an exaggerated wink and makes the group laugh again.

It’s her turn next. 

“Alright, Amy, something you’ve never done,” Maddie says. Natasha bites her lips and thinks. 

“Never have I ever…” 

She’s struck by a bizarre desire not to lie, to think of something that she really hasn’t done. 

_Never have I ever killed someone with a paperclip, though I’m certain I could if I put my mind to it._

_Never have I ever told Captain America that, yes, those khakis_ do _make him look ridiculous._

_Never have I ever had photographs to put on my goddamn shelves._

“Never have I ever seen Swan Lake,” she says. 

“Aw, come on, that’s lame,” says Mark.

“What, the ballet?” Maddie asks. 

Natasha nods. “I used to love the whole vibe when I was a kid. I wanted to be a dancer.” 

“Well, I’ve seen it,” Tatiana says, taking a swig of her vodka. “My pretentious aunt brought me when I was nine.” 

Natasha used to think she had seen it. She used to think she had _danced_ it. She used to think she had danced a lot of ballets. 

“Fuck, I just remembered my mum wants to Skype with me tonight,” Neil complains. “She’s all anxious about me traveling with everything that’s been happening in Ukraine and the whole SHIELD thing. Thinks we’re all going to get blown up any second.” 

“Can’t blame her,” Maddie tells him. “I mean, did you see the footage from Washington? 

“Pretty embarrassing for the Americans,” Tatiana says, then turns to Natasha. “No offense.” 

“Hey, Britain had a big hand in SHIELD, too,” Maddie replies. 

Natasha dips her head forward into her drink. It’s unlikely any of them will recognize her with no makeup and her hair dyed a dull brown, but anyone could know her face now. The vodka stings going down her throat.

“Did you hear what the Black Widow said?” Maddie continues, looking Natasha square in the eye. 

Natasha shrugs. “Is that the green one?” 

“Come on,” says Tatiana. “Black Widow’s the girl.” 

“She’s so hot,” Mark interrupts. Tatiana elbows him in the ribs. 

“Basically, they had her at this hearing in front of all these old politicians and she was just like, ‘You’re not blaming me for this, motherfuckers, Black Widow out,’” Maddie explains. “There’s an article about it on the New York Times website.” 

“I would go lez for Black Widow,” Tatiana says. She wraps her arms around her knees and sighs. 

“Oh, shut up, Ti,” Neil says. “You’d go lez for a corn chip.” 

“Oh, fuck off.” 

Maddie snorts laughing. 

“Wait, wait, I propose a toast,” Mark says. He raises his cup. “To terrible vodka, and to Tatiana going lez for a corn chip.” 

“I hate you all,” Tatiana mutters. 

Later, when they’ve all climbed underneath their scratchy sheets, some more drunkenly than others, Maddie crouches beside Natasha’s mattress. 

“Amy?” 

“Yeah?” Natasha says, pushing herself up on her elbows. 

“We’re going to see St. Sofia’s tomorrow,” Maddie tells her. “You could come with us, if you wanted.” 

Natasha frowns at her hands. “Why? You don’t know me.” _For all you know, I could be a former Russian assassin with a tendency to electrocute people unconscious_ , she thinks, and tries not to smirk. 

“It’s just - I know you’re meeting up with your friends, but until you do, it seems shit that you have to be a tourist alone,” Maddie says. 

This time, Natasha does smile. “I’m used to traveling by myself.” 

“Why do it if you don’t have to, though, right?” Maddie says. 

“Well, we’ll see,” Natasha replies. 

The next morning, she’s gone before any of them wake up. 

. 

Nick doesn’t say goodbye to her. He’s never been good with that, either. What he does do is ask her to come to Europe to help him hunt down surviving Hydra cells. He’s traded in his billowing coat for an ordinary jacket, and he wears dark glasses in place of his eyepatch. The changes make him look smaller, somehow, more human. His walk is still slightly stilted from the damage Hydra’s attack did to his body.

“I could really use you, Natasha,” he says. “Hill’s gone to the private sector and I need a second in command on this thing.” 

She shakes her head. “I’ve got some things to take care of. Did you ask Rogers?” 

“Thought I’d ask you first,” Nick says.

They’re sitting on a bench looking over the Potomac. Military helicopters hover over the remaining wreckage like vultures over roadkill. Natasha’s bought herself an ice cream: vanilla and strawberry swirl. 

“He’ll say no,” she tells Nick. “He’s going to want to go after Barnes. You should ask Wilson - he did some damn good work out there.” 

“I intend to,” Nick says. 

Something in the lake explodes and several people run to the shore with their phones to film it. Nick leans forward with his elbows against his knees. 

“It’s a good thing I’m dead,” he comments. “Because if I weren’t I think Congress would kill me.” 

Natasha licks her ice cream and raises an eyebrow. 

“I don’t know,” she says. “There’s still time for Peggy Carter to beat you to death with her walker.” 

“Thanks for _that_ nightmare,” Nick mutters. He stands up and peers at her over the top of his sunglasses. 

“You’ll be around when I need you?” he says. 

She grins. “Don’t get mushy on me, old man.” 

“I’ll take that as a yes, Agent Romanoff,” Nick says. He turns on his heel and walks away, and she watches him until he fades away into the crowd along the shore. 

. 

It rains in Kiev, and Natasha walks until her hair is dripping and her backpack is heavy with water. She finds herself on an unfamiliar deserted street, lost for the first time in years. The road is narrow and water runs down towards the drains in little rivers, soaking her jeans up to the calves. For a moment, she considers trying to find out where she is and then head for St. Sofia after all. She could blend in with the tourists and just stand under the domes for a while, maybe find Maddie and her friends. Instead, she shrugs her pack from her shoulders and sits down on the sidewalk, shutting her eyes. She’s too tired to pretend to be Amy the dental hygienist right now. She’s too tired to do anything. The rain keeps falling, getting into her mouth and weighing down her eyelashes. 

Someone comes around the corner, head bowed against the downpour. He’s wearing a sweatshirt with the hood up over his face, but she recognizes his walk. Solid, heavy steps. 

(Her vision is still hazy from the impact of the crash, and her engineer’s leg is crushed. She heaves his arm over her shoulder and starts looking for cover, but there’s nowhere to go. The figure comes towards them, metal arm glinting in the sun. Solid, heavy steps. 

She thinks, _You know me._

He pulls the trigger.) 

She stares at him, wondering how long he’s been following her and kicking herself for not noticing him sooner. He’s wearing a baseball cap underneath his hood, and his hair sticks out from under it in damp tufts. Somehow, she doesn’t think that he’s come to try and kill her. His hands are balled up into fists in his pockets and he looks at her as if she’s a particularly difficult crossword puzzle clue. 

“Do you want to sit?” she asks in English. She pats the wet sidewalk next to her with her hand. He looks from the sidewalk to her face then back at the sidewalk again - then sits next to her with his knees drawn up in front of his chest. They sit in silence for a while, listening to the rain patter against the asphalt around them. 

“I went back to one of the old facilities,” she says, finally. He frowns, looking down at his hands - identical in woolen gloves. 

“Did it do you any good?” he asks. She lets out a low laugh. 

“No,” she says. “It did fuck-all.” 

He looks at her. “You’re in some of my nightmares.” He pauses, realizes what he’s said. 

“I don’t think I meant that as a bad thing,” he continues. 

“It’s okay,” Natasha says. “You’re in some of my nightmares, too.” 

He ( _James,_ she keeps telling herself. _His name is James, his name is Bucky, he’s Steve’s friend, he’s Steve’s_ \- ) tightens his mouth into a grimace. She has the thought that he doesn’t look like no one anymore, but she’s not sure what that means.

“You got out,” he says. “You walked away from it.” 

She nods. “I did.” 

“How?” 

She shakes her head and laughs again, without humor. “I’m not stronger than you, alright? Just luckier.” 

There’s another long period of silence. The nervous movements she’s used to from him are gone - they must have found a way to beat them out of him after she had left. He’s uncannily still. 

“God, I feel so old,” Natasha murmurs. 

“Is that why you’re sitting here in the rain like an asshole?” he replies. Natasha raises her eyebrows at him, and there it is, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. 

“Great, so now I’m being judged on my coping mechanisms by the amnesiac cyborg assassin,” she says. Helpless laughter starts to bubble up from her stomach. 

“It’s not a judgement,” he says. “Just an observation.” 

The rain is a drizzle now, but they’re both still soaked through. Their clothes stick to their bodies in a way that makes Natasha feel as if the chill is sinking through to her bones. It’s cold for May. 

“You know, you have something I didn’t have,” she tells him. “Things to remember. People to come home to.” 

He shrugs. “I’m so used to being alone.” 

“Maybe,” Natasha says. “But why do it if you don’t have to?” 

. 

She has six messages on her phone from Clint. 

_Nat,_ says the first one. _What the hell is going on? I was on assignment and suddenly my contact was compromised and I barely got out alive. Call me, okay? This doesn’t bode well._

The second: _Nat? Come on, Nat, I’ve called all your burners and you aren’t answering. If you’re dead, I’m going to kill you. I’m in safe house Bluejay so you know where to find me. I’m freaking out here. I do not have the resources for this shit._

The third: _That’s it, we’re not friends anymore._

Fourth: _If you call me I’ll buy you a milkshake every day for a week_ -

Fifth: _WHY IS EVERYTHING ON FIRE?_

Sixth: _Hey, Natasha, it’s Kate. Clint broke his jaw, so, yay for that. Just calling to let you know that the SHIELD facility with some dumb codename I can’t remember is secure. Turns out Hydra wanted to kill us all, but you probably already knew that. Anyway, hope you’re well and not dead. Good luck with the whole everything-being-on-fire thing. Bye._

She listens to each message twice. 

. 

Natasha and the soldier walk to Independence Square. A year ago, people were dying here in fire and blood and smoke. It’s quiet now, with the rain clearing away over the monuments. 

“I’m going to go to New York,” he tells her. 

“Home,” she says. 

“Yeah. Home.” 

. 

Instead of the news, Natasha watches a marathon of old Captain America movies, the ones Steve is actually in. He’s not bad, honestly, and he looks stupidly good in the tight costume. She makes a game out of separating the real smiles from the fake ones. 

“Another day’s work for Captain America,” proclaims Steve-on-the-screen. “Good triumphs over evil and the day is saved.”

He’s using the same voice he falls into when he’s giving orders nowadays - deeper than he normally sounds, with every word carefully articulated to mask the remains of his Brooklyn accent. Natasha makes a mental note to tease him about that the next time she sees him. 

“What do you say?” Steve goes on. “Will you join me in the fight against tyranny?” 

( _Are you ready for the world to see you as you really are?_ )

“Sure,” Natasha says to her empty room. “I got nothing better to do.” 

. 

Natasha ends up in one of her safehouses in upstate New York. She watches her face in the mirror as she takes a pair of scissors to her hair, letting chunks of brown fall into the sink. Then, she leans her head over the bathtub and combs dye into her hair. Red again, dark, just the way she likes it. 

After her hair is dry, she takes out her phone, meaning to call Steve and let him know that James is coming to New York. Something stops her, though. They’ll find each other eventually, when James wants to be found. Besides, she still needs to disappear for a while, at least where most people are concerned. 

Her finger hovers over the name above Steve’s in her contacts. Sharon’s probably started working again, right back on the horse as always. Maybe Steve even called her and they bonded over American ideals and the legacy of Peggy Carter. Still, Natasha hits the dial button before she can think about it too much, and after two rings, she hears Sharon’s voice on the other end of the line. 

“Natasha?” Sharon says. “Did something happen?” 

“No, no, I’m fine,” Natasha assures her. 

She realizes that she doesn’t know what to say. 

“Nat?” Sharon asks. “What is it?” 

“Yeah, I just,” Natasha starts to say, then: “I just. I was wondering if you’ve ever seen Swan Lake.” 

. 

The man next to Natasha on the plane is trying to make conversation, his eyes dropping to her breasts with every other word. Natasha looks out the window at D.C. getting smaller and smaller below them and tries not to ask herself what she expects to find at the end of this plane ride. Her shoulder is still sore from the gunshot wound. Another enemy destroyed. Another disaster survived. The Widow always wins. 

Natasha pulls her hat over her eyes and curls up in the seat, letting the airplane carry her forward into the sunrise.


End file.
